children shall have none of those imperfections that sin hath brought into the world. They shall not feel any of the infirmities unto which the bodies of Adam and Eve were subject in the state of innocence; for their life was sensual and animal-like, disturbed with hunger, thirst, and weariness; there they had need of nourishment and drink, and especially of the fruits of the tree of life, to supply so much of their natural heat. I conceive also, that they stood in want of rest and sleep; and although God would have protected them from all dangerous accidents, if they had continued in their integrity, if we consider them in themselves, without any such protection, they might have been injured by fire and sword, and burnt with the scorching sun. But it shall be otherwise with the bodies of the righteous, after the resurrection; for they shall not be subject to any infirmity; they shall be free from pain, weariness, and from the sense of violence, as the Holy Spirit promiseth; they shall hunger and thirst no more, the sun shall not burn them, nor any heat incommode them. It is not to be doubted, but that a glorified body shall enjoy all the perfection that a human body is capable of, and that the greatest and rarest beauties on earth are but deformed objects, in comparison of the celestial, which shall never change nor fade away: no accident shall ever be able to destroy or diminish them. Years, ages, and thousands of ages, shall not imprint upon our glorious faces the least wrinkle; we shall be always young and lusty, as a precious stone that preserves its lustre and beauty without alteration, and as the sun that never decreaseth in light and heat. Those glorified bodies shall cast off all gross and heavy qualities that incline them to the earth, so that they shall be more nimble than the eagles, and shall be able to fly up as quick as the fire. St. Paul intends to teach us this truth, when he tells us, that this body is sown an earthly and sensual body; but it shall rise again an heavenly and a spiritual body. We are not so to understand these words, as to think

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that God will change them into spirits, or into such uncompounded bodies as are the heavens; for they shall yet be made up of flesh and bones, and they shall have all the essential parts of an human body, as we have already taken notice: But I conceive, that they are named spiritual and heavenly, because they shall have no more the gross and earthly qualities, and they shall live no more a sensitive and an animal life. In a word, they shall need no more meat nor drink than the stars and celestial bodies, no more than the holy angels of God.

I confess that our Lord Jesus Christ ascended up into heaven in a cloud, not because a cloud was necessary to support and keep up his glorious body. For if in the state of his infirmity and humiliation, this divine body was able to walk upon the waves of the sea without sinking, by the assistance of his divine nature; how much more, since his glorification shall it be able to ascend up on high, and to go whither he listeth! If the help of any creature had been necessary to support him, he might have had legions of immortal angels to carry him up; but Christ needed not to be assisted neither by a body nor a spirit, nor by any other creature. This cloud, therefore, that appeared at his ascension, was no token of the infirmity of his human nature; it rather manifested the glory and magnificence of his divine majesty, unto which this precious body was united personally. God hath often revealed himself, attended by a cloud, as upon Mount Sinai, in the ark of the covenant, at the dedication of Solomon's temple. Therefore that cloud, in which God was pleased to discover himself, is styled, The glory of God; that is, the sign and visible expression of his glorious presence and divine majesty. Let us therefore conclude from hence, that the cloud which attended upon the glorified body of Jesus Christ, was no assistance to carry him up to heaven, but as it were a chariot of triumph, to cause him to ascend with more glory and pomp. The bodies of the saints, after the resurrection, shall shine,

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and be full of glory; they shall not only have some superficial splendour upon their countenance or skin, as Moses, when he had been with God forty days and forty nights, in the holy mountain; but they shall shine within and without, as a true diamond, that casts abroad on all sides its light and flames. So that it shall happen to them, as it happened to our Saviour upon Mount Tabor; for it is said, that his garments became white as the light. In the same manner, at the time of our transfiguration, our bodies, that are but garments of our immortal souls, shall be as clear as the light, and as bright as the celestial globes. I speak here nothing but what the prophet Daniel said before me, Dan. xii. "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." And our Saviour assures us, Matt. xxiii." The children of God shall shine in the kingdom of their Father as the sun."

These glorified bodies shall never corrupt nor putrefy, but they shall be for ever incorruptible. Therefore St. Paul assures us, "that this corruptible must put on incorruption." So that I may safely affirm, that their glory shall be more durable than that of the sun, or of the moon, or of the stars. For though these celestial bodies never corrupt, out of any inward principle; though there can no alteration happen to them, neither from their essential form, nor from the properties that issue from it, nor from any other inherent quality; they shall nevertheless corrupt out of an external principle: for the almighty hand of God which made them shall change and alter them, as the royal prophet tells us, in Psalm cii. "The heavens shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed." 2 Pet.iii. "The heavens (said he) shall pass away with a great noise." Whereas the glorified bodies shall never corrupt, neither by any internal principles, nor by their essential form, nor by the properties

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perties and accidents that flow from it, nor by any external cause, or by any accident whatsoever, that can be imagined; for the almighty hand of God shall make them, never to mar them again. From thence it follows, that they shall die no more, but shall continue immortal; for with incorruption they must put on immortality. Therefore, when our Saviour speaks of the state of the glorified saints, Luke xx. he saith not only "that they shall not die; but, they cannot die any more, because they shall be like the angels, being the children of the resurrection." In this consists the difference between them and those whom God hath raised up, already mentioned in the Old and New Testament. For they were forced to return to their sensual life, to eat and drink, and therefore they were again subject to corruption and death. But at the day of the general resurrection, "whatsoever is mortal shall be swallowed up by life;" therefore St. Paul applies to this glorious day the accomplishment of this prophecy, "Death is swallowed up in victory." And he brings in these persons who shall be clothed with this immortal glory, braving death and the grave, in this triumphing language, “O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory!"

In short, to make us sensible that our bodies shall put on the richest and most noble qualities that can be imagined, and to express all in a word, the Holy Ghost assures us, that they shall bear the image of the Son of God, and be made conformable to his glorious body. St. Paul declares this truth, 1 Cor. xv. "The first man, (saith he) was of the earth, earthy; the second Man was the Lord from heaven: as is the earthy, such are they that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." And in Phil. iii. he saith, "We wait for the Lord Jesus from heaven, who shall change our vile body, that it may be like to his glorious body." From hence you may understand, Christians,

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Christians, that at the rebuilding of this little temple of the Godhead, there shall happen no such things as at the rearing up of the temple at Jerusalem; for when that was rebuilding, at the return from the Babylonish captivity, they who had seen the former temple, and its wonderful glory, wept aloud, and their weeping interrupted the others' expressions of joy and gladness. At the restoration of the temple of our bodies, nothing will be heard but songs of triumph and jubilee. Such as have seen with the eyes of faith man's body as it was in the state of its integrity, in the earthly paradise, shall not be then sorry, that it hath been defaced by sin, and destroyed by death. They shall not be sorry for any thing that is passed; they shall not be able to wish for any increase of happiness and glory for the future: for at the very instant of its rising from the grave, it shall be raised to its highest splendour, happiness, and magnificence; so that it shall be truly said, "That the glory of this second house shall be greater than that of the first," Hag. ii.

Now that we have treated sufficiently of such as shall rise from their graves, it remains that we take a view of those whose bodies shall never be laid in the dust, and who shall be alive at Christ's coming down from heaven. For that purpose St. Paul informs us, 1 Cor. xv. " Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet. And he speaks in this manner to the Thessalonians, 1 Thess. iv. "For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of our Lord, shall not prevent them that are asleep; for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and we shall ever be with

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